2007-2008 Saturn Sky

Pros :
- Sleek original styling.
- Excellent handling.
- Bargain price.
- Supercar braking performance.
- Enough headroom for tall people.

Cons :
- Sparsely equipped base interior.
- Not exactly quick.
- Limited luggage room.
- No spare tire.
- Fun for only two people.

Interior :

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Press Coverage :
With dynamic design and quick, agile performance, the Sky roadster delivers a bold message about the next generation of vehicles from Saturn. Available this spring, the Sky is the first Saturn to feature the brand’s European-influenced design, which will carry forward to future products.
The Sky is an all-new vehicle, and is an affordable performance roadster for driving enthusiasts. Built on GM’s new global rear-wheel drive compact performance platform, the Sky is fun to drive with a striking profile and sophisticated interior design.
The Sky’s design was inspired by the Vauxhall VX Lightning Concept, created in 2003 at GM’s Advanced Design Studio in Birmingham, England. A team of designers at GM’s studios in Warren, Mich. adopted some of the Lightning’s innovative styling and created the Sky to establish Saturn’s new design direction.
With a commanding road presence and stance; aggressive, edgy and sharp lines; and clean, sleek surface, the Sky offers a distinctly European look. Decorative hood vents emphasize its dynamic performance character and accentuate its long dash-to-axle appearance.
Several of the vehicle’s key body panels are produced using sheetmetal hydroforming. Relatively new in the area of sheet metal fabrication, hydroforming has been used for years, primarily in the production of light-duty truck and SUV frame members. Sky's large, sharply-creased clamshell hood, as well as its door inner and rear quarter outer panels, could not have been made with conventional stamping.
The interior is driver-focused with integrated controls and displays and premium materials. Creative use of contemporary, upscale black and chrome finishes combine with available leather seats and technical grains to emphasize richness and precision. Jeweled detailing on the HVAC and lighting controls is executed with tight fits, highlighting the attention to detail.
The Sky also has the hardware to back up its bold styling. It is equipped with a 2.4L, 177-horsepower DOHC Ecotec engine with variable valve timing and a five-speed Aisin manual transmission with a short-throw shifter. A five-speed automatic is available. It also features electronic throttle control (ETC) for remarkably precise engine control response.
The Sky uses a hydroformed tube structure for an extremely strong and rigid chassis, especially for a convertible. With its purpose-built chassis, Sky looks the part of a true sports car and has all the stiffness and torsional rigidity necessary to make it a nimble, fun-to-drive roadster for the enthusiast driver.
Designers engineered the Sky suspension to optimize handling and steering feel – with no compromises. Key attributes that enable the Sky’s impressive handling include high lateral acceleration with minimum body roll, light and responsive steering and a smooth, stable ride.
The vehicle’s power rack-and-pinion steering system provides the performance expected from a high-end roadster or sports sedan. The system exhibits excellent on-center feel, and enables the driver to feel closely connected to the road. The result is a vehicle that is precise, yet easy to drive.
The Sky’s brake system is designed to provide optimal driver feedback. The power-assisted dual-diagonal brake system comprises a vacuum booster plus 11.7-inch ventilated front and 10.9-inch solid rear discs. Working together, these components yield a responsive, solid and linear braking feel with minimal pedal travel.
In addition, Sky has a standard anti-lock braking system (ABS) with dynamic rear proportioning (DRP). DRP, or electronic brake distribution, provides superior braking stability by continuously optimizing front/rear brake balance to accommodate a variety of driving conditions, including deceleration, surface traction levels and vehicle loading conditions.
The vehicle features 18x8-inch five-spoke aluminum wheels, Goodyear Eagle RSA P245/45R18 96V, high-performance all-season tires with a large, wide sport appearance and aggressive tread pattern that enhances the stance of the car. The combination offers excellent all-season performance, excellent longitudinal grip that contributes to best-in-class stopping distance and road gripping ability. Chrome five-spoke wheels are available.
The roadster’s manual fabric top is easy to operate. The rear hinged deck lid closes over the entire mechanism, hiding everything in a seamless flow of sheet metal; with no visible evidence the vehicle has a top.
Sky has a host of safety features, including a supplemental restraint system (SRS) with dual-stage front airbags – one in the steering wheel and another in the instrument panel on the passenger side. A standard Passenger Sensing System (PSS) uses the latest sensing technology to turn the front passenger air bag on or off.
Security features include standard OnStar Communication System, remote keyless entry system including a panic alarm, and engine immobilizer with PASSKey III theft deterrent feature.
GM Media

Both the Solstice and the Sky share a manual convertible top, which is bothersome to work, to say the least. The Sky's cloth top calls for one to lower it from outside the car and needs multiple steps to put down or up. And it must be pushed down hard to move it beneath the rear-hinged trunk lid that neatly encloses it.
The rich-looking top fits snugly when raised, but takes extra effort to put its stylish rear fabric "wings" into place after erecting it. I've found that the rival Mazda Miata sports car's manual top can be quickly flipped open with one hand without leaving the driver's seat.
Although the Sky feels solid, and has decent fits and finishes, the doors had to be slammed several times to completely shut them. That's something that can make potential Sky buyers hesitate before even thinking of leaving the showroom for a test drive.
Occupants must "fall into" the Sky's low, supportive bucket seats and "climb out" of them. The low seats and high body sides may make shorter drivers feel too low in the car, but the body sides do help protect occupants from wind buffeting with a lowered top.
The roomy interior of the Sky is more upscale than the Solstice's cockpit, with a different dashboard and console. As with the body, the Sky's interior has more glitz, with various chrome accents and available two-tone seats that look snazzy. The top also has an extra layer of acoustic material for better noise insulation.
MSN Autos

The refinement is turned up a notch over the Solstice, and it’s noticeable. Over pavement holes the Sky’s suspension lets the body down with softer landings. Lumps aren’t as obtrusive. Dig into the throttle, and the burring from the DOHC 16-valve 2.4L four is more muted, its 6900-rpm redline less of a raspy thrash than in the Solstice. GM’s Ecotec swings a big stroke and will never be confused with a zingy sports-car engine. In the Sky, the harshness is better hidden.
The Sky’s chief assets are its looks and stiff chassis, which kept the car flat and planted while chasing hairpins in the Santa Monica Mountains behind Malibu. Compared with a Mazda MX-5, or indeed a BMW X5, the Sky feels wide and the seats set deep in the body. The vibe, enhanced by the view forward of bat-wing fenders, is distinctly Corvette without the V-8 thunder. Steering feel, critical to a roadster’s street credentials, proved worthy of tight roads with fast-changing cambers and pitching pavement. The large wheel jigs and tugs just enough to keep drivers on the tires’ wavelength. The Sky turns with commitment and holds a tight line through corners with no squealing or sloppy body motions.
Gerbil-grade power means frequent downshifts and long periods with the pedal buried. A shifter that slides precisely and feels better than a pickup truck transmission has a right to is close enough to the wheel to be flicked with a fast hand motion. Danger is virtually unknown. When the grip breaks, it does it gradually, predictably, and in sports-car style from the rear. Catch the little slides with a little gas and a little countersteer, and push on with one big grin.
Car and Driver

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History:
1984-1988 Pontiac Fiero 2M4
2,500 cc / 98 hp / 135 lb-ft / 2602 lbs / 0-60 mph 10.0 sec.